


Cause Everyone Deserves the Flames

by jax (hippydeath)



Category: Sky High (2005)
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-19
Updated: 2008-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-28 19:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/311602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hippydeath/pseuds/jax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Flames all need fuel</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cause Everyone Deserves the Flames

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Yuletide 2007

There's one memory that fuels the fire more than any other. Most of them are grim, dirty; fights that he's been in, the hatred towards the Stronghold family, a general hatred of the world. But this one, it's not.  
He's eight, maybe seven even, perhaps just before his birthday, and his dad had promised him, actually he can't even remember what he had been promised, but it was going to be good. He'd been waiting at the door for hours, waiting for his dad to come home, his mom had forced him to eat his dinner, and he'd gone straight back to the door. And waited. And waited. Eventually he'd fallen asleep, and his dad still hadn't come home, wasn't home the next day either.

He'd shown up a couple of days later and his mom and dad had screamed at each other for what seemed like hours, before his dad had knocked on his door, then came in anyway and sat on the bed.

"Warren." He'd said in that tone of voice that generally shouldn't have been argued with, but Warren didn't move from the ball he'd curled himself into.

"Warren, look at me."

Warren mumbled into his pillow. "Go `way."

"Warren... I know you're upset." He laid a hand on Warren's shoulder, turned him over.

Warren scowled. "You promised. You promised me weeks ago, and then you go away and don't come back for days."

"I'm sorry Warren, but I had to go away on business, you want to have nice things don't you?"

The little boy nodded shyly, still trying to scowl.

"Well then, I have to go and work, and sometimes these things take a bit longer than they're meant to."

"But mom calls when she's going to be late home, so that you know to get take out."

His dad smiled, ruffled his hair. "Yeah, but remember that I do secret work, I'm not allowed to call."

"Even when it means breaking a promise?" Warren wiped his face on his hands and looked at his dad.

"Even then." He ruffled the boy's hair. "I'll make it up to you I promise."

"Really promise?" Warren looked hopefully.

"Hand on heart promise." He stood up and placed his right hand over his heart, and held out his left hand. "You coming? Show your mom we're friends again?"

Warren nodded and took his fathers hand, went into the kitchen and the whole thing was consigned to memory.

 

**********

 

Of course, his dad had never made it up to him. He'd left a string of broken promises until the police turned up a year or so later and took him away, locked him up for four life sentences.  
It's that memory; of his dad promising over and over again that he'd make it up, that they'd do something special, which keeps the fire burning when he needs it to be strongest, brightest, hottest.  
**********  
Then there's another memory that justifies the fire for him. He'd worked hard to get to Sky High, he'd studied and read and ignored the jibes and expectations, tried to make himself into something that wasn't his fathers image, and then his dad made it clear that he didn't care.  
A couple of months before he started at Sky High, his mom took him with her on a rarely allowed visit to see his father in prison. Twice a year, that's all that she was allowed, and she had never taken Warren before; he'd been too young she said, or too volatile. But this time, she was proud of her son and wanted his father to be proud of him to his face.

They sat either side of the reinforced glass, his mother next to him, and stared, not saying anything. Mrs Peace nudged Warren on the shoulder.

"I hear you were accepted to Sky High." His father broke the silence, sounding neutral on the subject. His mother positively beamed with pride.

"Yeah." Warren shrugged and slumped lower in the rickety plastic chair.

His father nodded. "Just make sure that you remember who you are. And don't take any crap from anyone."

"Language, Barron." His mother protested half-heartedly and Warren snorted.

"What, the son of a convicted murderer and a liar, and all those other things you are?"

Barron Battle raised an eyebrow. "Is that all you think of me as?"

Warren nodded. "What else are you? Hiding some hideous secret that you were really a pure hearted humanitarian all those years? `Cause I don't remember that. I just remember the lies and the excuses."

"I did that so that you could have a comfortable life." His father said very slowly. "And I never heard you complain."

"Oh, so you were deaf all the times you upset me because you'd broken a promise again were you?" Warren had his fists clenched and was trying somewhat unsuccessfully to control the flames that threatened to erupt from them.

"I see your power manifested." Battle noted approvingly. "Something you got from me, obviously."

"Warren..." His mother laid a hand on him, as a warning, and he noticed that the guard in the room starting to look anxious.

"You know what, I wanna go outside." He stood up and the guard nodded, opening the door. "Great seeing you dad." He said without any conviction and with his back turned as he left.

The guard let him out and another led him down the myriad of hallways until they reached the exit, where he waiting for his mom, until she came out half an hour later looking pale and tired, and ushered him to the car and home without a word.

Needless to say, that was the last time he took his mother up on an invitation to go and see his dad.  
**********  
The final time they saw each other, there wasn't any less antagonism, it's just that his father didn't have the energy, and Warren had finally learned to ignore it.  
Warren stood a little way down the corridor from where the nurse; a bulky, middle-aged woman with a stern face, addressed his father. He looked older, frailer than when they'd last seen each other, back when Warren was a teenager. Prison and the illness that was obviously killing him; permanently this time, had taken their toll.

"Mr Battle, there's someone here to see you."

"I'm not interested in having my soul saved. Tell them to fuck off." He didn't look up from the paper he was writing on.

"Mr Battle, it's your son." The nurse pleaded, and he looked up.

"Then tell him to fu-" He started, but was wracked by a coughing fit.

The nurse turned her head to Warren and smiled apologetically. "He's always like this. You can stay if you want, just try not to agitate him too much."

Warren nodded, and slumped down in the chair she indicated to him. His father glared at him as he continued to cough but Warren sat, unfazed.

"Come to gloat that your old man's finally dying for good." He rasped out, and Warren shook his head.

"Came to say goodbye." He waved his hand backwards towards the nurses' station. "Doctors say you're not gonna be around much longer. Thought I'd come and see where all my money was going."

"Don't bother waiting for any thanks for that. I don't appreciate you meddling in my life." Battle carried on writing.

"I'm not doing it for thanks. I'm doing it because while I hate to admit it, the thought of you dying in agony doesn't really appeal." Warren leaned forward. "Dad, will you at least look at me."

Battle put down his pen and did look up, hazy, pale eyes meeting Warren's and he squinted. "What?"

Warren sighed. "Look, I'm not going to forgive you for being a shit father when I was little, and I'm not going to forgive you for getting locked up until the day you died and leaving me and mom to fend for ourselves and deal with all the stigma of being the family of a super villain. I can't."

"Probably for the best, I don't want forgiveness, I don't regret what I did."

Warren audibly ground his teeth. "Fine. Whatever. I just want to make some kind of peace; us not speaking, it hurt mom more than she ever let on. And, I dunno, it doesn't feel right that you're going to die and we still don't talk. I'd feel bad about it."

"Your choice Warren." Battle went back to his writing. "Your little heart to heart here changes nothing, you ungrateful little shit."

"I'm ungrateful? You never gave me anything to be grateful for!"

"I gave you a roof over your head, I made sure that you had clothes, that you and your mother never wanted for anything."

"Yeah, and then when they locked you up, we had to pay all your legal bills, half our stuff got seized. You left us with nothing."

Battle put the pen down, cap on, and folded his arms. "Fine. I was a terrible father and an awful husband. I wasn't there when you were little, I wasn't there when your mother was ill, and I'll never be there to see your children. I'm sorry." He started coughing again, this time reaching for the oxygen mask. After a few minutes his breathing was back to normal and the mask was replaced at the side of the bed. "There, happy now? I am paying for my sins, if that's what you believe."

"Fine dad. I just wanted to see that you were going to be comfortable." They sat in awkward silence for a while, and then Warren started to get up, straightening his shirt.

"Warren." Battle coughed a little. "Wait a moment." He picked the pen up again and wrote for a couple of minutes. Warren settled back in his chair for the time, while the nurse hovered just at the edge of her station, worried that her patient was getting over excited.

His writing was interrupted by another coughing fit, but eventually he put down the pen and gathered up a stack of paper, held together with an elastic band. "Here." He rasped. "And don't say I don't ever give anything back."

Warren took the pile and looked at the cover page. "Your memoirs? Who's gonna want to read this?"

"There's a..." A coughing fit hit and Battle took a couple of minutes to recover. "A card under the front page. It's already got a publishing deal. You've just got to deliver it."

There were a few moments of Warren finding the card and putting it in his wallet, and staring at his father, who returned the stare.

"The profits go to you. I have no desire to die in debt, that's my way of clearing it." He started coughing again, and this time the nurse waddled over and fiddled around with some of the machinery that he was hooked up to. "I'm sorry Mr Peace, you're going to have to leave. He needs to rest."

Battle grumbled, "I'll have all the rest I need soon you stupid woman." Then started coughing again.

Warren just adjusted how he was holding the pile of papers. "See you dad." He said.

"Have a good life Warren." Was Battle's reply, the unspoken words that he didn't expect, or want to see his son again.

"Sure thing." He nodded to the nurse and walked away; carrying a package he didn't know what to do with and more fuel to fire his flames.


End file.
